It's ok to not be ok

I get it, you think you can handle it all. You’re not 100% ok, but you think you have everything under control and you continue to try to navigate life’s challenges on your own; it’s the only way you know how. You depend on yourself, and you will not let yourself down. I’m going to tell you now, from someone that has been there, STOP. You can try to handle it yourself – sure. But you don’t have to. There are people out there trained to help you sort through life’s messes and come out on top, not just “ok”. It won’t happen overnight, but you didn’t get here overnight either – did you? And regardless of what you have been taught your entire life, it is absolutely ok to ask for help. It is not a sign of weakness but actually a sign of strength to know when you have hit your breaking point. It takes an incredible amount of bravery to “flip the script” and try something new, make a change, decide you want more from life. This is my story, and it is incredibly personal. All of my blog entries here are, but this one makes me feel exceptionally vulnerable. But from a place of bravery and strength I will share it anyway in the hopes that I can help at least one person to know when it’s time to seek mental help.

Please bear with me through this deeply personal story, and read on from a place of understanding.

To understand why I found myself in such a bad space mentally, you need to first understand what else was going on in my life before and during the cancer diagnosis. In 2017 my Mom was diagnosed with rapid onset dementia, at 60 years old. Suddenly the vision we had for the lives of our family changed. Mom (Mimi to her grandkids) would no longer be able to babysit, offer parenting advice, be present at milestones. Instead we found ourselves making the painful decision to find an assisted living facility for Mom, and later a nursing home. An additional result of this diagnosis was my sister and I taking over the care of our grandmother (Granny), our Mom’s mom. She was still living on her own at that time but it quickly became evident she needed to be in assisted living as well. We struggled to get her finances in order, Mom had been handling that but was no longer able to nor was she able to explain to us where things were. Then we began moving Granny and cleaning out her house to sell it. As you can imagine, between caring for Mom and Granny our family was busy. And stressed. Side note, the current systems in place are not conducive to making any of this easy for caregivers. Cancelling utilities, filing for Medicare, getting legal Wills and POAs set up – it seemed every step was another battle. I could probably write another entire blog about that, maybe another day…

Somewhere around 2019, I decided I had too much spare time (sarcasm) left over between helping to care for Mom and Granny, working a full time / high stress job, being a wife and being a Mom so I decided to enroll in grad school online. I enrolled in a three year program for my M.J. in Global Food Law. To say I was a busy lady was an understatement. My job at the time required lots of hours, and I was on call 24/7. I would do my school work in the evenings and on weekends while also trying to spend time with my family and be involved in anything Mom and Granny needed. “Down time” was non-existent most days but I was managing. Or at least I thought I was. There just wasn’t much time for anything else. Fast forward to early 2020, when I heard those dreaded words – “you have cancer”. I didn’t have time to deal with this, but I also didn’t have a choice. I took a semester off of school to go through surgery and radiation, then jumped right back in. I could handle this – right?!?! Then a pandemic hit and there were even more concerns for every avenue of my life. How does a cancer patient avoid getting COVID-19? My son was suddenly doing school work from home, as most kids were. My husband’s job shifted to a mostly remote work position for a while. Work required additional sanitation and safe guards, as we were a food plant. We were deemed essential personnel so there was no work from home, the world still needed to eat! And then the nursing homes, and the fear of compromised patients like Mom and Granny catching this little understood virus. The nursing home facilities went on lock down for a while to protect their patients, which meant we were not allowed to visit. But that incorporated another stress, did they understand WHY we weren’t there as often as we normally would be? How much time did they have left with us, and were we missing the precious moments we did have left? So much unknown, so much to stress about, and everyone was simply doing the best they could with the situation we found ourselves in.

Let’s fast forward again, this time to early 2022. We were allowed back into the nursing homes some time before, with proper PPE, and were watching Granny slowly fade away. My sister and I took turns sitting with her that last week, talking to her and playing some of her favorite church songs. And although we didn’t get much response from her at all, I like to think she knew we were there with her in her final days. Once again, our lives changed as we found ourselves saying goodbye and planning a funeral. Thoughts bombarded us that Mom should be here, Mom should be able to help with her mother’s funeral… but that was not our reality. Mom didn’t even understand what was happening anymore, and so we did the best we could for Granny and to step up for Mom and handle what we know she would have handled herself if she had been able to.

I tell you all this to let you know where I was mentally in the second half of 2022.The constant side effects from the cancer meds were overwhelming, work was overwhelming, grad school was overwhelming, life was overwhelming…the stresses and the emotions became too much. Far too much. I thought I had it all under control, but it felt like the harder I tried, the worse it got. The lack of sleep, the mental and emotional stress, the physical pains, the anxiety, and the tears – I felt like my world was spinning completely out of control and I didn’t know how to make it stop. After talking with my husband, my rock through all of this, we decided that I should try counseling. I was hesitant, but I also figured it couldn’t possibly make anything worse. But now, where do I find time for this in my schedule???I was already missing a fair amount of work for my many oncology follow ups. Thankfully, the counselor I decided to work with had an option that allowed me to meet with her over the phone. Once every two weeks we would speak over the phone for an hour. Little by little we began peeling away the layers and years of stressors. She suggested I start with some intentional and regular self-care to reground myself and begin decompressing from the constant stresses of daily life. We also began to discuss ways to eliminate some of my biggest stresses. Thankfully, I was nearing the end of my graduate program so that stress would soon be over. We also discussed the possibility of changing jobs, which ultimately I did, to a job with less stress and less demand on my time. It was essential for my health both mentally and physically. While we continue to work on getting back to a manageable level of stress, and less anxiety overall, there has been a good amount of progress already. There are some stresses that will not go away, of course. I think everyone has some form of stress from just normal parts of life, but hopefully we can get it to a more manageable level. I am far from done with counseling, but what I can tell you so far is when life gets overwhelming it is OK to ask for help. It is OK to seek out a counselor who you connect with and who thinks like you do, and it is OK to allow this person to help you through the darkness. Daylight will come again, it never left, but it is hidden behind your layers or turmoil and you may need someone to help you through to the other side. Reach out to someone, anyone and give yourself the gift of a better peace of mind. Trust me, you will thank me later; remember - your mental health is just as important as your physical health.